Monthly Archives: April 2010

I logged into my DeviantArt account tonight for the first time in awhile; I had two new messages that people had added some of the stuff I’ve uploaded there to their favorites. One person added my college-era Freddy Krueger; another the Boba Fett triptych I drew for my friend Joel earlier this year.

I’m a pretty harsh critic of my own work, and to see somebody else has somehow found it and taken the small effort to click a button and consider it a “favorite” is pretty cool.

Like this:

Last night, I spent about two hours further beating my face against the wall that is the build issue I’ve been having in Xcode, as I try to learn this whole computer programming thing. After a point, I quit and started drawing.

I kicked out about four pages of heads, working on positioning and proportions. Burne Hogarth’s “Dynamic Anatomy” book is going to be good, but the text material and the illustrations don’t match up well; when there’s a wall of text that describes the proportions of everything and how x bisects at y muscle, there’s no accompanying image that specifically shows this. That’s a struggle for me. But, I was able to work out some basic heads last night and I’m happy with the progress (if not the final result). I’m really going to have my work cut out for me when I start trying to draw anything that isn’t straight-on from the front, 3/4 perspective or a direct side view. And it’ll be difficult for me to make the leap to “draw some random person” from “draw this generic head.” But I did get some good work in last night; I’ll get pics of the pages put up somewhere and post ’em here later. Looking forward to more practice.

Don’t know what my plan is for tonight; will either draw some more, or just skip past this compiler roadblock and continue with programming. Probably the latter. We’ll see.

Like this:

I don’t even have mine yet (this week, hopefully), so it’s hard to get too worked up over these “why the iPad sucks” posts that seem to be everywhere now. This one popped up on an eWeek update I got today; it’s from last Thursday (April 22): 10 Reasons Why an iPad Is Not For You.

Let’s break down their 10 reasons:

1) Lack of support for Flash.Legit, I suppose, although more developers seem to see the wisdom in moving toward open standards that Apple prefers for Web content and away from closed, proprietary environments like Flash. Examples of that here, and how lack of Flash on iPad is pushing development of alternatives here.

2) The Wi-Fi-only model is a tough sell.
Seriously? The iPad isn’t for you because a feature available on the device isn’t available on the base model. This is ridiculous.

3) It’s relatively expensive.
Compared to what? Every analyst in the world expected the iPad to be at least $800 for the base model before it was announced in January. Look it up; every single estimate was that this device would start between $800 and $1,000. Now $499 is too expensive an entry point? The article also makes a point to compare the $499 price to a $350 netbook; it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, if you’ll pardon the pun.

4) No multitasking-yet.Knocking hardware for a software limitation that won’t exist after fall doesn’t seem reasonable.

5) The competition is coming.That’s the kicker – it’s *coming*. The iPad is here; you can buy one today. Everything else is just a flashy sales presentation on a Web site. No comparable product exists. Using “the competition is coming” as a reason to not purchase computing hardware equates to “never buy anything, ever, because something better is coming.”

6) It’s a first-run Apple product.OK, this one may actually be legit. iPads had early issues with Wi-Fi, after all. But it’s hard to tell how legit this is until the product has been out for awhile. It could turn out to be true, it could turn out to be untrue.

7) Google might have other plans.This is the same as 5), and it’s stupid. “Don’t buy this, because somebody else maybe, possibly might be rumored to be considering developing something.”

8) An iPhone is a better bet.Why, exactly? Because it can make phone calls? Smaller screen… Same lack of multitasking (which you already told me was a negative)… Saying the only reason users might want an iPad is “touch-screen functionality and access to the app store” is a straw man; that’s it? Not the larger screen, or iPad-specific apps that are intended for that larger screen? Again, it’s hard to judge this having not seen one, but I can almost guarantee there will be a significant difference in user experience between the iPad and my iPod Touch (which, really, is a phoneless iPhone) because of the software.

9) The apps aren’t there yet.Of course not; the iPad has been shipping for three weeks, and very few third-party developers, if any, had access to the actual hardware before launch. Everything was done through simulators in the IDE. iPad apps will be coming in droves now. Even so, there are some amazing apps available right now for iPad.

10) It can get expensive quickly.“…if users want to use the iPad as it’s designed, spending extra money is an inevitability.” Are you kidding me? You can say the same thing for every other piece of consumer electronics in the world. I’ve got a BluRay player, but if I want to use it as it’s designed, I’ve got to buy or rent those damn discs. I’ve got a computer, but if I want to use it as it’s designed, I’ve got to buy that damn software. Take it a step further; I’ve got a car, but if I want to use it as it’s designed I’ve got to buy that damn gasoline.

Give me a break. Everything has peripheral costs. Everything.

So, really, of eWeek’s 10 reasons, in my world view two of them might actually be legit, and the other eight are just pointless and baseless rants that fall apart with even a modicum of examination.

Like this:

I was planning for tonight to be another computer programming night at home; read some stuff, write some code, try to get some more things working. But I need to take a day off from that after spending hours yesterday trying to solve a compiler linking issue that should be trivial. My brain still hurts. My first contribution to the programming community is likely going to be a visual guide to solving this issue, since my browsing of a variety of forums yesterday showed a large pile of beginning programmers having exactly the same problem, but no good solutions.

And, today has been a typical Monday filled with Super-Fun Meetings (TM), and I am just not in the mood for anything requiring concentration. Maybe I’ll feel differently later.

So, art night. More reading Hogarth’s book, I think, and maybe kicking out 2-4 pages of sketched stuff depending on what I get into with the book.

Like this:

I added four pictures of recent drawings to Flickr; this is a goofy zombie variant of “Trap-Jaw” from He-Man. It’s pretty average, but is indicative to me of why I need to work more on my drawing. The ability is there, I just need to refine the technical stuff and practice a *lot* more.

Anyway. Check out the sidebar, over there –> or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/87598275@N00/. In addition to Trap-Jaw, I posted pictures of a two-page spread of just random sketches I did last night before bed and three pages of really genuinely dreadful sketches of Dr. Horrible I drew after I finished watching the “Sing-Along Blog” for the first time on April 10th.

Like this:

So, for the time being, I’m going to pretend to take this iPhone development thing seriously. As such, I have started a separate blog for all ‘stuff’ related to that so I can keep it in one place and not spam up this blog with posts (assuming there are posts, that is). So, visit it here if you’re so inclined: